Support your local Goddess
by Andy White
Summary: More of the Old Gods popping up in Supernatural. Takes place after Devil's Gate opened and the demons are having a big time in Texas. They just mess with the wrong people sometimes. Stars Diana, Roman Goddess of the Hunt. Cont'd with reader feedback.
1. Chapter 1

On a sidewalk in the suburbs of a Texas city, we see a lone teenage girl strolling down a sidewalk. She's expressionless as her hair, dyed a nostalgic black and cut in the Bettie Page style, waves around her shoulders as she clomps down the sidewalk in scuffed black work boots.

The full moon above her is shining down a silvery bath of soft light that brightens her already pale skin that is starting to bead with sweat in the early May heat.

Her daypack bounces against her lower back and the straps cut into her black hooded sweatshirt.

The snaps on her blue jeans are straining to stay together against the bulk of her belly, so she's buttressed them with a thick studded belt that corrals the round swell of fat. The sweatshirt hides the effect of the belt somewhat, but her requisite black t-shirt is stretched across her front with a flash of bright skin in relief against it.

Her thick, pale kneecaps shine through the holes in her jeans.

Coming down the sidewalk ahead of her is a group of women.

Well, there are 5 young women that look to be her age and 1 older woman who could be in college or maybe her mother's age.

The 5 young women are all dressed out of a catalog, or the Gossip Girl set. Each of them has a unique style, but all are put together very well. They're all hard and tanned, with the trademark sculpted shoulders and trapezius muscles showing from sleeveless tops appropriate for early summer. They've bought everyone a ticket to the gun show, sporting arms that America's first lady would envy. At first glance, they look thin, like those starving girls in the Noxzema ads. As they approach laughing and gliding up the sidewalk, it becomes easy to see the feathery definition of their shoulders and the jumpy defined bulk of their legs.

They look like a cheerleading squad or gymnasts out on the town with their coach. Except the coach, she's what they hope they'll be one day. She's a tall and fit woman with long sun-bleached blond curls held by an ornate jeweled stag horn hair barrette. Her tanned olive skin glows in the moonlight. The first few lines around her eyes form when she laughs with them. And, when she laughs with the girls, her voice is like a brook in a quiet part of a secret wood.

As they pass each other on the sidewalk, the girl with the Bettie Page hair doesn't veer to one side. She doesn't look at them. She doesn't look away. She walks through the middle of them upsetting their good time.

They audibly and visibly protest. Who does she think she is, anyway?

As the girls with the bangs keeps going, one of them turns and slaps her on her backside, saying "Watch where you're going, Bettie!"

She takes a few steps and stops.

They've gone quiet.

She turns toward them, her head tilted to one side and an eyebrow raised. She looks over her shoulder to her backside and gets a glimpse of a sticker they put on her. It's round and black, and she can see just the top of a person's head in the center.

The 5 are standing looking at her, arms folded and hips stuck out to one side or the other. The older one steps toward the girl.

"You should run." She says in a heavy Italic honeyed voice, as she pulls off her sunglasses to reveal her green eyes.

The girl's face goes wide with terror and she turns to run, but falls flat on the sidewalk. The 6 of them all burst into laughter and begin walking toward her.

She scrambles to her feet, scuffing her exposed knees. She only makes it about 10 feet until the backpack she had been wearing thuds to the ground and she's pumping her arms and legs as fast as she can.

The 5 young voices are howling with laughter and she can hear their footsteps behind her.

She turns the next corner at a dead run and hides behind an old blue Chevy Caprice in a driveway.

She can't hear them anymore.

After a few minutes, she slips from behind the Chevy and peers down the street.

She cautiously walks under a big weeping willow tree in the same yard, hiding herself behind the hanging limbs and crouches to look down the street.

"I seeeeee you." A young voice says, giggling above her.

She looks up, and one of the five is sitting in the branches above her. She stumbles backward into the street and starts running again, sweat soaking her hoodie in a dark stripe down the back as she makes it past street after street.

She's looking for cover. She just needs to find somewhere to hide.

She looks to her right and sees an alley between two brick buildings. She almost runs in, but in her peripheral vision sees a figure jump from the roof of one brick edifice to the other. She turns back to the street. Her breath is heaving now. Her face is red and sweat is pouring from her now in sheets all over her body.

She continues down the street at full speed. Her hoodie, breasts, the roll of fat around her middle, and her Bettie Page hair all moving and grooving under her panicked stride marked by the thunder of her boots, and the sound of her breathing mixed with terror.

She runs one block, then two without looking back. She looks left and sees a figure running along the rooftops keeping pace with her. She looks right and hears a voice say "Where you going?" and it's sneering laughter.

Ahead, there's a large green hedgerow. It's only 2 more blocks. She'll turn there and get off this street.

Her mouth is getting dry and foam is forming at the corners as she heaves her breaths in and out of lungs that are indignantly burning from the demand placed upon them.

She passes a big Red Oak tree in the front yard of a small house with a perfect green lawn and geraniums on the porch. Leaning against it is the older woman. A savage smile darkly lighting her face cuts into Amy's wide, terror stricken eyes.

The girl sprints past her, her face the color of a beet and her jeans now damp with sweat. Her black boots stomp loudly across the concrete sidewalk.

She can hear the woman's steps behind her now, easily keeping pace with her. Unlike the younger women, she doesn't make any catcalls or laugh. The girl thinks she can feel the woman's breath on her neck as she easily runs what is, for her, speed she can only get from adrenaline and terror.

One more block, she runs with this woman's breath on her neck, her footsteps in her ears. Head back and chest out, gasping for air, she's making as much speed as she can, but it isn't much.

As she reaches the green hedgerow, she hears footsteps subside behind her. She keeps running full tilt, her face purple now. Her lungs are on fire, and her mouth feels like its made of desert sand.

She leans into the turn, still pumping her arms and legs at top speed. The boxwood limbs grab at her sweatshirt. Her arms flail as she puts on the brakes as hard as she can.

In front of her are the 5. You would say they were grinning if you were looking for the right verb. But, if you were in the boots of the girl with the Bettie Page hair, you'd say that they were showing her their teeth. There is no literary difference of opinion about their eyes. They're filled with a smoldering hate that can only be fostered by the bittersweet taste of retribution close enough to smell, and soon enough, to taste.

She turns and dashes away from them, but the woman who had been following walks around the corner and puts out her left arm, knocking her off her feet. The young and out of shape Bettie Page scrambles backward on her hands and feet as she's still gasping for air in desperate gulps.

The woman reaches down and picks her up by the sides of the damp hoodie, easily tossing her into the arms of the five who hold her fast, not a drop of sweat could be found among them except what came off of the girl's drenched body.

She's still gasping for breath in gulps, her face a blotchy watercolor of purple and red and white as they hold her by the arms, hair, belt, anywhere those strong little hands can grab.

"I.."She begins to shout hoarsely,"I didn't.."

"What's that?" The woman says, putting a hand to her ear as she steps slowly forward.

The 5 look at one another and laugh in that savage way that young girls in groups can.

"I didn't know!" She says, desperately between gasps.

The woman walks up and reaches in past her t-shirt, and finds two strands of rawhide. As she continues pulling, the two strands meet at a medallion fashion of cheap metal. It's an oval shaped piece that depicts a woman, nude from the waist up and holding a bow. She drops it and grasps the hoodie, jerking it down over the girl's left shoulder and tearing the sleeve. She has a tattoo of the same image on her arm, but it's surrounded by a circle of characters not quite English, but faintly close.

She looks at it, and looks back at the face of the girl.

"Goddess protect me?" She sneers, laughing that same bubbling laugh again.

"No I..." The girl begins again. "I didn't know. You gotta believe me!"

"I don't gotta do anything!" She barks, taking the girl by the throat with her left hand and raising her right into a fist.

The girl begins to blubber incoherently and the woman slaps her face with a vicious right hand in a flash that leaves a white print in the red and purple.

"Have a little dignity, despite your low station!" She growls in a low and irritated voice.

The girl sobs and struggles as the five hold her fast, though only barely.

"I don't want to die!" She whimpers, a miserable storm of pain and misery written across her face and her body going limp.

In a fluid punching motion, the woman thrusts her arm into the girl's throat nearly to the elbow. She looks away, as if she were feeling for something while the girl squirms and tries to scream, tears streaming. A ½ second later, a wry smile illuminates the woman's face as the girl's body suddenly jerks involuntarily.

"Hold her!" One of the five barks as she reaches down and pulls the black sticker from the girl's gyrating backside.

The woman draws her arm from the girl's throat. In her hand she grips a smoky, writhing, inky, dusty terror. As she pulls it, it tries to worm away and go back into the girl's mouth. The girl's eyes go from brown to black and back again twice. But, the woman continues to draw it, hand over hand, like a clown pulls a handkerchief that never ends from his pocket.

When the last of it finally clears the girl's quivering mouth, her eyes are rolling back in her head and her body is seizing and shaking violently as blood and spit foam in her mouth.

The 5 put her down on the sidewalk gently and begin to recite a series of foreign words with the woman who holds the coiling and straining darkness in her hands. Slowly, the girl's body is at peace and her brown eyes blink at the fullmoon and starry sky.

The five help her to her feet.

She is still breathing hard from the exertion and blinking as if she'd just been awakened.

As she gazes around herself, wide-eyed, the woman stands looking at her with a motherly concern.

"Are you alright, child? She asks.

Seeing the black, cloudy, struggling thing held only feet away, she takes a step backward and points accusingly.

"What the hell is that?" She gasped.

"This is the thing that was inside you, Amy." The woman says calmly. "This is the evil infested you and hid in your skin."

"Oh..." She says, standing staring for a moment with her mouth open and then putting a hand up to her mouth and going to one knee.

Her back heaves and she vomits a bit of bile on the gray sidewalk unceremoniously.

The five kneel around her and pat her on the back. One pulls an ornate white linen handkerchief from her back pocket and offer it as Amy stands again on shaky legs.

Amy remembers how she had been walking home from a night of work at the local Sonic, and the black cloud had surrounded her, filling her body with its darkness. She remembered how it had shoved her aside and taken over the levers and knobs that controlled her flesh. It had murdered and maimed, trapped, tortured, and mutilated her whole family as she had been made to watch. All the while she screamed and pleaded for nearly a week inside, trapped in her own runaway body, a prisoner in her own mind.

She remembered how it laughed. She remembered the joy it felt and how it fed on its horrible actions and her anguished reactions.

They all watch as it begins to struggle even more to free itself from the woman's grasp. It pulls and writhes. It tries to constrict her arms. And, its struggles intensify as she begins to pull her hands apart from one another, her shoulders and back tensing. When it comes apart, a flash of what can best be called black light briefly issues forth, only to be swallowed by the moonlight that bathes the town. It falls to the ground as no more than dust.

With a sound of disgust, the older woman holds her hands away from her.

"Oh, these things are so disgusting." She says, "I need some soap and water."

One of the young women hops a short stone fence beside the hedgerow and turns on a garden hose that lays beside a bed of growing daisies at a doorstep. Another pulls a small container from her pocket and squeezes some soap into the woman's hand. She lathers up her hands and washes them very carefully, scrubbing vigorously.

When she finishes, another of the girls hands her a small towel and she dries her hands as she looks over at Amy standing on the sidewalk looking stunned.

"You didn't really think I'd let one of those things get one of my girls, did you?" She asks playfully.

Amy can't respond, but swallows hard.

The woman sits on the stone wall, and motions for Amy to sit down beside her.

"Do you still want to be my daughter, Amy?" She asks, looking in Amy's eyes.

Her normal pale color had returned and her breathing had slowed now, but she sat with her mouth open staring.

"Well, it's not as easy as wearing a medallion or getting a tattoo. You'll have to devote your whole life to me. Can you do that?" She asks.

"Well.." Amy stammers. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you will need to go out in the world and become a warrior and a hunter, for me." She begins. "I mean that you'll have to forge yourself into the kind of woman that these women are."

She motions to the five as they stand quietly only a couple of feet away.

"There are a lot of these things out there, and a war is coming. I need soldiers. And, I need loyal soldiers."

Amy's mouth gapes.

"You're lazy, Amy." She continues. "If you want to be my daughter, you'll have to make yourself into a woman who is equally dangerous and wise. You'll have to remake yourself in my image. And, I can make that happen. But, there's no room for slackers."

Amy looks down at her black boots.

"You won't find me in games or books. You won't find me on Google, though I do have a g-mail account. So, maybe you can." She said, laughing a bit. "You'll find me out here. Out in the cold, the rain, and the snow, but also in the moonlight, and the flowers, and in beautiful mountains."

Amy looks up into her soft green eyes.

"I saved your life tonight partly because you have marked yourself as mine, and partly because there are a lot of these things around now that need to be taken care of one way or the other." She says in a serious tone. "But, if you are serious. If you really want to devote yourself to me, you need to know that it is very real and I take it very seriously. And, I'll take your commitment seriously. As should you. This is not a game or a fairy tale."

Amy remains silent, but kept listening.

"Will you join me in the wild hunt? Will you spill the blood of my enemies and be part of our sport as well, leading a life of danger and adventure? Or, will you go back to your life, at least what's left?"

Amy scrunches her cheek and pulls her hair behind her ear with a quivering finger.

The woman reaches out and grabs the cheap medallion, pulling it from her neck with a harsh snap. She grabs her arm and holds her hand against the tattoo that fades at her touch and disappears.

"You are released from your previous contract with me, Amy." She says quietly. "And, now you have the opportunity to take an oath knowing that I am not a page on Wikipedia, some statue in Italy, or a symbol of a rebellion against your now dead parents or some establishment."

"I'm no good at stuff like that. I don't even know how to shoot a gun." She says, looking at her boots again. "I never even get picked in gym class."

"You fought a demon for a week inside you and never gave up, didn't you? I can mold you into a great hunter, and a dangerous foe to these things. What you've never done will become your greatest triumph. Your failures will be cornerstones of success. But, it is a lonely life. It is a bloody life."She says, putting her finger under Amy's chin to look in her eyes. "So, you must choose for yourself knowing that you are choosing something very real, rather than some fiction you learned in a game or read in a book. And, there is no turning back."

"I have to choose now?" Amy asks.

The woman beams at her with a proud smile.

"No, Amy." She says. "You have until the moon is full again to decide."

With that, she stands facing Amy. The five began walking down the sidewalk toward the hedgerow and around the corner, chatting and laughing as they go.

"Until then." She says,"Here's a better medallion than that cheap junk you had. It'll keep you safe."

She tosses something at Amy who throws up her hands to shield herself, rather than trying to catch it. She is too late to keep it from hitting her in the nose. It is a very old gold coin with a piece of finely cured leather thong through it that lands in her lap. The woman's face is on it in profile.

Walking backward down the sidewalk she waves at Amy and turns to round the hedgerow.

Amy listens to her footsteps trail off and stares at the medallion in her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

South Dakota, 1 year and 32 days later.

She walked across the room, gingerly stepping over and around the bodies that littered the floor and making her way to a woman cowering in the corner. Her red and black kilt was covered in small drops of blood as were her black pigtails. Her spitshined black boots were smeared in it, leaving red vibram patterns on the floor where there weren't pools of the red stuff.

Her body was hard as if she'd been chiseled from a piece of white marble and then been given life by some pagan God, but it was also dotted and splashed with crimson here and there. On her pale bare arms the red stood out in relief looking even more morbid. On her black Dropkick Murphys t-shirt, it just looked like it belonged.

She made her way to the woman and stood in front of her.

"You know who I am?" She asked in a businesslike voice. Though, it was more of a statement than a question as she stood there dressed like a schoolgirl but with all the countenance of a straight razor.

The woman nodded in a terrified way, avoiding the task of looking in her steady gaze and focusing on the floor. She was trembling like a rat caught in a trap.

"Good, because you don't deserve to hear her name and you surely don't want to die for daring to speak it, do you?"

"N....no..." She said quietly to the floor, moving her hands up in front of her head as if to protect herself from this fearless gaze.

"If you know who I am, and you know who She is, then you probably know why I'm here and why I let you live so far." She said again in that matter of fact tone.

The woman seemed to try and cower in upon herself, pulling her legs into her in an effort to look as small as possible. She kept her shaking hands above her head.

"I count 32 dead demons here." She said matter of factly. "I think that's just a good start, and so does she."

The woman looked out from behind her arms at the black haired woman speaking to her in disbelief.

"Y'all broke the covenants that stood for millenia. She agreed to not get involved in your little squabble and you agreed to leave her alone. Now, She's decided that it's time for all of you to get some payback and to remind you that this place isn't yours. It belongs to the people born here, and to the Gods who actually walk this earth and care about us."

"This" She waved her left hand out to the diner full of dead bodies as her right hand hooked a thumb into her studded belt. "is her declaration of war on all you smoky Caspers."

The woman looked a little less frightened as disbelief overtook terror.

"You're alive to make sure that someone goes back to the pit and informs everyone there that now there's a price on any heads that poke out of there or try to possess anyone else up here."

The woman stared at her a second as her mouth began to open maybe to try and say something.

"You tell em' we're coming for them, and they're all going to die." The woman in the kilt said, pointing an accusing finger at her face.

The woman threw her head back and a dark smoky cloud erupted into the air and zipped away through a broken window.

"Well, I guess we got ourselves a war now." She said as she looked around at the bodies that littered the floor of the little diner.

She left Big Jake's Pancake House in Dupont South Dakota, walked back to her 1933 Ford coupe she'd parked out front, and drove off into the moonlight.

Huey and the Clowns were playing "Don't you just know it" and she turned it up loud to sing along with the radio.

She made it through the second verse to "You got me rockin' when I want to be rollin'" when the volume was turned down abruptly.

"So, we have a war now?" A voice with a heavy accent said from the passenger side.

"Yeah. It's official." The girl driving said."We started a war."

"You have any problems, Amy?" The woman in the passenger's side asked.

Amy giggled a bit and looked over at her. She was barely lit by the light from the radio dial, but her mouth, nose, and cheekbones stood out in the blue light. Her eyes were dark depressions.

"No, it was easy." She snickered. "I got 32."

"Very well done." She said, her tight mouth spreading into a cruel smile. "Call me. You know I worry."

Amy let out another snicker and looked over to see she was gone. She turned the radio back up and sang the rest of the song as the old Ford rumbled back to Dallas.

The older the woman, the more she teases  
(Don't you just know it)  
The younger the woman, the tighter she squeezes  
(Don't you just know it)

Ah ha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)  
Ey eh, oh  
(Ey eh, oh)

Gooba, gooba, gooba, gooba  
(Gooba, gooba, gooba, gooba)  
Ah ha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)

Ah ha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)  
Ey eh, oh  
(Ey eh, oh)

Ah ha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)  
Ey eh, oh  
(Ey eh, oh)

Gooba, gooba, gooba, gooba  
(Gooba, gooba, gooba, gooba)  
Ah ha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)

Ah Bha ha ha  
(Ah ha ha ha)  
Ey eh, oh  
(Ey eh, oh)


	3. Chapter 3

It's overdue. I know.

This part of Amy's story isn't one that will make you feel fuzzy and warm. In fact, most parts of her story will make you a little sad. But, this one, well this one is the part you may want to skip and pretend she went to bootcamp and did pushups, ran, and maybe cut her hair short and snorted some G.I. Jane line at the end so you know how tough she is. That is, if you don't want to remember how hard the old Gods can be on the mortals they choose, or allow to choose them.

It's not Hogwarts we're talking about here. And, this Goddess isn't the shiny happy one that people nowadays make her out to be. She's not the surrogate mother so many want or need. She's not a Grecian, touchy, feely, beauty full of forgiveness and care. She's the source of frightening campfire stories told by people so long ago that their bones are dust by now. She's the sacred Mother and the unrepentant wrecking ball all rolled into one. She's anything but a simple picture of what you might be thinking. And, she's not looking for someone to hug.

She's not building an army of cheerleaders to have pillowfights and sleepovers. And, you don't build soldiers without making them hurt and bleed in the process. She's making a stand for all the marbles. These women are her 300 Spartans to help stand against an apocalypse manifested and manipulated by alleged good and evil.

I feel a pang of guilt telling you this part of Amy's story. I know you read this to feel some heartswelling triumph, and in moons to be seen, as the Goddess herself says, she has those.

Our Goddess also says that every bullseye is made from 1000 misses. And, any of the misses while studying the applications of war in her brutal camp will be painful so that lessons are quickly learned and not soon forgotten.

But, I have to tell you this part, as sad as it may be for you to read and for me to relate, it was all the more difficult for Amy to endure.

--------------

That night after the demon was yanked out of her like a black tapeworm, it didn't take Amy long to realize she was out of options. A few hours of trying to figure out what to do left her with the reality that her family would only continue to decompose and eventually she would be found and charged with murders she had no way of proving weren't her handiwork. It was a big dose of reality for a 17 year old girl and probably would have put most adults in the fetal position sucking their thumb in a rubber room.

But, she was made of tough stuff, even then. Much more so than she, or anyone who knew her, would have ever guessed.

She hitched a ride across Texas and eventually wound up in a homeless shelter in Hot Springs where she worked in the kitchen. For a couple of weeks she stuck around and worked, enjoying the feeling of family as she got to know the regulars. But, she remained tight lipped as ever, barely speaking to anyone.

A month later, on another warm moonlit night, she had a visitor as she was in the alley throwing garbage in the dumpster.

"Time to give me an answer, Amy." A voice behind said rather suddenly and sternly.

What else was there to say? She was standing in the magnificent and terrible presence of a Goddess who wanted her as a soldier. She had no options. And, she couldn't stay hidden forever.

Of course, she said yes. Even if this were a psychotic break, it was preferable to reality.

"Well then, let's get started, shall we?" The blond woman said, reaching out to touch her forehead with a delicate finger."Your training begins now."

The world swirled around her and in an instant she was standing in a field with the Goddess, still wearing her apron from the shelter kitchen.

A woman walked out of a small concrete building at the edge of the meadow. She was wrapped in a white linen fabric that made a dress of sorts. Her black hair glistened in the sun, and though she was a pretty woman with sharp features and prominent dark eyebrows, she wore a somber expression like a mask.

Amy took a step backward, then another as the woman advanced.

There were no formal introductions. This was not finishing school or summer camp.

In a flash of wood and steel, she suddenly had the woman's spear buried in her chest and the woman who wielded it still pushing it out of her back until it was nearly through her to the end of the shaft.

Amy's knees wobbled, folded, and she fell down on her side under the spiteful gaze of the woman.

"She didn't even last two seconds" Amy heard her sneer.

"We'll see how she does." The blond woman said.

The black haired woman knelt beside her as blood spattered the grass behind her and ran in gouts from the spear that hung from her back.

"You are weak, and you are a waste of my time, child."

Everything faded to black as she drifted off into the ether.

The next morning, she awakened in a room atop a small bed surrounded by brown concrete walls. She felt her chest, but there was no wound.

The door opened and she walked out into a small oval shaped room with a dirt floor. The stone walls were scarred with marks and gouges. Presently, the black haired woman walked out into the small room with the spear in her hand again and the same white dress around her.

"Did you have a nice rest, dear?" She asked.

Amy started to tell her about the awful dream she'd had where she had been skewered, but the woman stepped quickly forward and thrust the spear into her chest again.

It continued on like this for many days as Amy woke every morning after being speared to find herself in perfect health.

She cried many times for mercy, but the cold gaze of the woman with the spear was unflinching. Amy died begging, crying, pleading for mercy over and over. Even as the warm summery days turned to the cooler ones of autumn and the air smelled of rusty leaves, she continued to fall time after time to this woman's speed and skill.

One day, she managed to wrestle the spear from the woman and held it in her hands awkwardly, but she didn't know anything about spears. The black haired woman landed a hard left cross punch to her jaw, sending her thoughts swimming away. Her head hit the ground first with a sound more like a breaking melon and the black haired woman was on her, hammering away until the porcelain skin of her face was either lumped with broken bone underneath or cut and seeping blood in crimson streams.

It continued like that as the days became frigid and snowy outside, and then warm again as she heard birds chirping again beyond the scarred concrete walls. She would awaken, the door would open, and the black haired woman would find her and kill her whether she left the room or not.

Sometimes she dodged a thrust with the spear. Sometimes she evaded a kick or a punch. But, in the end she always fell. Sometimes she would lay there for hours bleeding to death in misery, skewered through the bowels. Sometimes she would pass on quickly.

Then, the seasons began to fly by as one day melted into the next. The wall inside her room filled with short scrapes, gaining one for every day that went by.

After a long time, she had no idea how long, there was a moment when the black haired woman had her down, using the shaft of the spear to choke her. That moment when she felt her own blood that had poured out of her knuckles and the same stuff that dripped from the woman's mouth collected on her hand, she was able to slip that blood slicked hand free, driving it into the windpipe of the black haired woman and sending her backward grasping desperately at her throat.

Without hesitation or even a bare thought, and certainly without remorse, Amy sprung on her and drove the spear into her mouth and through the back of her head, burying the point into the concrete wall upon which so much of her blood had been spilled for innumerable days.

She stood looking for a second at the woman who was frozen in a limp pose. She turned and walked back into the room where she had awakened so many times. She stepped up on the bed, looked around at the walls covered in small marks and then at the blank ceiling above her. Her right had was swollen from a bone broken during the fight, so she dabbed at the blood on the knuckles with her left index finger and made a single short swipe on the ceiling in blood.

After that, she would awaken to a different opponent every day. Some were wispy razor sharp women and some were hulking brutish men. All of them used varying weapons, but she always awoke with nothing but her red kilt and black tank top on and her black boots sitting in a corner waiting for her.

She learned how, in the most dire of times, to gouge out an eye with her thumbs. She learned to squeeze a throat in the right place to crush a wind pipe or squeeze the arteries to make someone lose consciousness. She learned to do all manner of brutal and vile things to her attackers because they had done them to her over and over.

Gradually, the bloody marks on the ceiling became populous while the scratches in the concrete walls of her room continued to increase, though with much less regularity.

Then, the opponents began to come in pairs, trios, and finally in dozens.

They held her down and flayed her skin from her body, grinning and teasing her. They hacked her to pieces with blades. They skewered her on horrible weapons of every description. They smashed her with hammers and they pulled her apart with sheer strength while she screamed in pain.

Sometimes she would last for hours, dripping with sweat, dodging and feinting until some arrow, blade, bullet, or bludgeon stuck her down. There were times when she wouldn't last for 10 seconds.

It continued this way for months and for seasons until she lost count. All she counted were the red marks she made above her bed. They were the first things she would see when she opened her eyes. And, she began to think only of having more.

That Texas girl who craved attention from her father, the one who grinned in all those home movies before she turned into a surly teenager, was fading away. That girl was being replaced by this blood soaked, tortured, malevolent presence that was rising up inside her. It was her still, but it was that dark part that we all have. This place nurtured that part, and it grew beyond any measure you and me might have thought possible.

One morning, after innumerable days, she awakened to the welcome sight of a ceiling full of red marks. She laced on her black boots and then stood at the door stone faced, and it was complete. That girl she had been was officially gone. All that was left was this hardened and vicious killer who could not wait for the door to open, because no matter how many there were on the other side- they were all going to die or she was going to die trying to kill them.

For you and me, this time that passed was only 5 short months. But, in the bloody bootcamp of the Goddess, time was different. Each month we passed was equal to 10 years there. For Amy, it was 50 years of pain and bloody combat.

After decades of fighting, she was no longer the chubby high school girl with a flabby belly and floppy arms hiding behind that Bettie Page hair and black clothes. She grew into a lean and powerful thing like a hungry wolf. Her face became a stern but blank canvas, and her eyes were cold and calculating as they looked for weakness in whomever she saw.

Her delight was placing one more bloody mark on the ceiling.

Eventually, the ticks that appeared in the wall ceased increasing and she began to run out of room on the ceiling. Everyone that stood on the other side of that door died when it opened, sooner or later, at the hands of this sinewy little woman no matter what weapon or how large, fast, or strong they were.

One day in particular, she stood in the middle of the concrete room surrounded by 20 bodies. Some were still twitching, some severed or broken in horrible ways, and the familiar face she hadn't seen in years stepped into the concreted space.

The Goddess walked in clapping slowly for her, as if it were a boxing match Amy had won.

"Oh, excellent progress my girl." She said. "It took you a while, but I believe you're starting to get the hang of this."

Amy said nothing, but looked at her with uncertainty as she wiped someone else's blood from her face.

For the first time in 50 years, she walked out of the concrete structure beside the Goddess and out into the meadow beyond. The morning sun was blinding, but the flowers were starting to bloom in the last chills of spring and the birds were singing. So long in the sterile concrete building made the world outside feel both alien and like cold water to a parched throat.

She closed her eyes and inhaled Spring until her lungs were full and then let it out in a quiet rush.

"I know it's difficult to be in a place like that for so long, but you'll never forget what you learned in there. And, now it's time for the next part of your training." The Goddess said, looking over Amy's shoulder at the cold concrete building.

She was like a lump of steel that had been heated and hammered into the shape of a deadly object, but now needed to be honed to make it sharp and dangerous.

For 7 more of our months, she was taken from place to place and taught the secrets of the human body and how to exploit them for combat purposes, how to use various weapons with expert skill, and how to plan an assault. She learned about deception and cunning in the application of war. And, she learned about the natures of the enemies she would soon face, both the dark and light ones.

She continued to bleed, die, and sweat under the tutelage of harsh experts that we might call the grand masters of our grand masters.

All this pain did, however, work to its intended end. The Amy that was saved on that street in Texas, that lost girl, was no more aside from the body and tight lipped demeanor it carried. The ravening animal that walked out of that concrete structure and savored the spring air was also gone, or at least tamed. And, for that, we do thank the Goddess.

While we were marking 12 months off our calendars, Amy was too busy with her bloodsoaked education to keep track. For her it was 120 long years of being torn down and rebuilt according to an unyielding and harsh divine will while in places that we might have read about in what we would call tall tales or fables, myths even.

So on the day the Goddess appeared to her again, she was ready and willing to do what she had to do. That lithe finger touched her head, the world spun and then unspun.

The air smelled familiar, as did the dust in the gravel lot where she stood. The building beside her, a broken down old construct from the 1960's with a giant white chicken by the side of a barren road, was jumping with music spilling from every window and door. A big flashing sign above the chicken beamed a message to the world in green and white light that this place was Trini's Saloon.

Across the road an old car sat on a trailer hitched to an old Chevy truck. Around the car on the trailer were the blond Goddess accompanied by an older man with a beard, a t-shirt that asked "How's your pork?" and a ratty old hat.

She recognized the car from old pictures in her family photo albums. Her Great-Grandfather had raced the car back in the 1940's until he enlisted in the Army. It sat for years unused in his barn and he always said he'd fix it up. For years people came knocking trying to buy it and he always politely refused.

All her life, it had sat in the barn with flat tires. She had never seen it so much as roll out into the sunlight, but had played race car in it as a kid when she would whip the wheel back and forth while making race car noises.

The bearded man kicked the ramps down on the trailer and walked up to the car, opened the door, and sat down behind the wheel.

A brief whirring sound from the rear of the car was quickly drowned by the sound of the starter, which was in turn drowned by the deep roar of the exhaust.

He backed the car gingerly down the ramp and then killed the ignition once it was off the trailer.

"Well, what do you think?" The Goddess asked, a little glimmer in her eye. "Do you like it?"

Amy raised her eyebrows to show her confusion.

"This was your Great-Grandfather's car, right?"

She nodded.

"I figured you needed some wheels. And, after the loss of your family, I thought you might like to have a couple of things to help you remember them." She said, a little grin creeping onto her face. "So, I bought it from an aution for you and had Bobby get it running. It's no Ferrari, but there's something very Amy about it."

Amy stood looking at the car. The old number 14 was still on the side as was the name "Gus Stavrinedes" above the driver's door. The old hand painted sponsor names still adorned the car, though the whole blue paintjob on the car was faded by time and the weather that got into the barn over the years.

"It's just like he left it in the barn before you left, aside from a few new parts here and there to make it run." She said, walking to the back. "Bobby here can tell you all about it. I'm sure you have some questions."

Amy turned to Bobby and stood waiting. Bobby Singer looked a little nervous and then started naming parts and particulars quickly.

"Well, when I got it into my shop, the old hemi hadn't run in years so I yanked it out and installed a 351 inch Cleveland V8 with a Holley carburetor to make it nice and simple. The tranny is a 6 speed and should hold up to all the abuse you can give it. I even installed a MacLeod racing clutch to handle all the power. Inside you got a radio with a cd player and an iPod jack, an extra electrical connection for a laptop or whatever doodads you want to use, and a couple of good speakers. They do ok when the motor is idling, but you have to really crank it up to hear it when you're cruising."

He walked to the trunk and held it open, motioning for Amy to come and look.

"Here you got a false panel." He said, pulling the floor up with a tug. "And under there is all your stuff that you'll need like silver, salt, and all that."

Amy nodded.

"And, it has a brand new set of Michelin tires, it runs good on regular gas, and all the lights work. Registration is in the glove box." He said, handing her the key. "Other than that, you got any questions?"

She shook her head.

Bobby walked to the front of the car and started swinging the ramps back up on the trailer and stowing the chains he'd used to hold it down on the ride to Texas.

"So, do you like it?" The Goddess asked.

A little smile broke over Amy's face and she nodded.

"I have one more thing for you, then." She said, reaching around to the small of her back with her right hand.

"This also belonged to your great grandfather, your grandfather, and then your father." She said, producing an old government issue .45 caliber pistol that was weathered and scarred. "Your grandfather Augustus carried this and used it to help liberate Italy in World War 2, and now it is yours."

She handed the pistol to Amy.

Amy reached out and took it, immediately ejecting the magazine and pulling back the slide to check the function and condition of it, then slid the loaded magazine back in to place. She pulled the slide back again, flicked the safety on, and then tucked it into the front of her red kilt without a word.

She walked back past the front of the car and up to the trailer where Bobby was finishing stowing the chains in a toolbox he'd bolted to the front of the trailer.

He was on one knee looping the chain hand over hand into the box when he noticed her and stopped for a second to look over at her.

He knew a lot of people. He knew hunters, mediums, and had seen all kinds of bad things in his life. This girl with the Bettie Page hair and kilt wasn't like any of them. She looked young and tough, hard as a pine knot as they said here in Plano Texas. But, there was something in her eyes that was frightening. There was something cold and calculating about the way she looked at everything, including him, as if she had a plan to kill everyone around her and would, without a bit of hesitation, do just that if she decided to for any reason. Being around her was like holding a package that ticked.

"So, that was your Great Grandfather's car, huh?" He said, nervously trying to fill the quiet space between them.

A breeze blew the black hair on her shoulders a bit, but she stood still as a tombstone.

Bobby stopped talking and looked at her for a moment.

She extended her hand toward him.

"Thank you." She said in a quiet voice nearly drowned out by the festivities at Trini's across the road. "I appreciate your hard work. I'm sure this car will be perfect for me."

Bobby pulled off his leather work glove and reached out to take her hand. His big calloused meathook swallowed it as the two briefly shook hands. He was surprised for some reason that her hand should be so warm.

"If you ever need anything for the car, or for other stuff, just give me a call." He said, fumbling in his coat pocket and then producing a business card.

She took it and nodded to him, then walked back to the car and the waiting Goddess who was sketching something in a small notebook.

She ripped the page out and handed it to Amy.

"Go here and bring me their heads. I'll be at Trini's." She said tersely. "It's wing night."

Amy folded the paper and looked at her for a moment, twirling the key around her left index finger.

"Thank you." She said.

"You're welcome." The blond woman said. "Now, hit the road in that jalopy and bring me some heads."


	4. Chapter 4

The sun was beating down on the the faded paint of the old Ford, and it was beating down on her. She was driving along listening to the sound of the engine rumble, her hair flitting around in front of her eyes. A purple Nalgene bottle was clutched between her legs and her quickly reddening arm was hanging out the window.

She held her hand out of the window and against the wind, feeling it push between her spread fingers. The highway eased underneath the car rapidly, but it was like one long happy moment for her that she enjoyed like that breath of spring air so long ago.

And, she did savor it over the short 22 mile jaunt from Trini's in Plano to a small farming community. The smell of the old car was the same since Bobby had merely had to patch the interior where it was ripped in spots. And, that smell carried her back to happier times when she was just knee high, running out to the barn to play race car in it.

But, before long the time for a few moments of horror was upon her when she arrived at the location marked on the paper.

She pulled her hand back in the window as she made the last right turn into a small dirt driveway that went past an old farmhouse and into the field behind.

She killed the engine and rolled to a stop in the dirt. The door on the old Ford creaked as she opened it. Dust puffed when her shiny black workboots hit the ground. She left the door open and walked to the back where the small trunk opened without a noise.

In the compartment under the trunk, she grabbed a brass knuckle and one old bronze sword with a duct taped grip and a set of knucks made into it. The blade had a couple of nicks, but it was still sharp.

She slipped the brass knuckles onto her left hand and held the sword with her right. The .45 was still tucked into her kilt.

She jumped to the top of the three steps in front of the back porch, pulled back the screen door, turned the knob, and pushed the door open. On the other side, two men were standing in the kitchen of the house talking to one another with a local country music station ambling along in the background.

They stopped talking and looked at her as if she were an alien trying to sell girl scout cookies.

"Can we hep' ye', young lady?" One of them, a portly older man in a pair of overalls and proudly wearing a "Bush Hog" hat drawled.

She brought the short sword blade up to her ear and then flashed outward with it almost like a punch, whipping her wrist around to accelerate the blade at the last moment so that a long awkward swing wasn't necessary. And, his head came off and bounced on the floor like a melon while his body sagged and fell in front of her.

The other man in the kitchen looked oddly placid until his lips parted in a snarl showing a set of very sharp and pointy teeth. He lunged for Amy as his friend's body was still falling thinking it would take her a second to pull the sword and strike again.

Several of his fangs went jingling across the cheap linoleum floor after she hit him with a brass knuckled left jab in the mouth. He shrank to the floor holding his mouth with putrid blood dripping onto his powder blue member's only jacket and his jeans.

A ¼ second later and the old bronze sword put him out of his misery.

She took three steps through the kitchen and entered the front room where a woman was seated reading a book.

"I reckon if you're here to kill me, let's just git' it over with, darlin'." She said.

She was a middle aged woman wearing a hideous floral print dress and sported white hair made up into a large beehive like cotton candy without the food coloring added.

Amy looked around and saw a brown folding door to her left. She drew the .45 out of her kilt with her left hand. The .45 bucked and spit flames as the bullets tore into the flimsy wood door. An angry hissing beast of a man dressed in a shirt with a "Run DMC" logo on it and a pair of faded jeans burst through the door. She flipped the pistol around and stuck it back in her kilt as the bronze sword in her right hand lopped off his head.

"What are you doing here?" The old woman in the ugly dress screamed. "We ain't done nothin' to you? I ain't ever seen you before, and I reckon I'd remember a body dressed like you."

Amy stepped over the body of the Run DMC fan and moved in on the woman.

She began to say something about just being left alone when she was cut off in mid sentence and her body slouched back into the chair, still holding the Nicholas Sparks romance she'd been reading.

The last, plastered in youth but betrayed by the caution and guile of someone much older stood on the opposite side of the rearmost bedroom holding an automatic shotgun. The barrel of the shottie didn't wobble or shake.

She looked down the barrel at his eyes as he leaned his head down to aim at her.

"I'm walking out of here, bitch. I've lived far too long to die like this."

Wyatt Earp would have been proud of the way she moved "slow but in a hurry" as the old .45 barked twice before the thing could pull the trigger of the shotgun.

The youthful looking vampire fell to the ground clutching its eyes and screaming. The shotgun clattered to the ground beside him. Where the .45 slugs exited, big chunks of skull were torn aside from the holes in the back of his head, and pieces of hair were splattered against the wall behind.

She stuffed the the old .45 back in her waistband and walked over to him, watching the holes in the back of his head mend quickly.

The bronze sword fell in a flash and the head rolled away from the body.

She gathered up the four shell casings that the .45 had spit out and the 5 heads she'd been instructed to bring back, and made her way back to Trini's.


	5. Chapter 5

Half an hour later, her '33 Ford rumbled back into the parking lot of Trinni's and she carried a swollen red duffle bag into the bar.

She'd cleaned up a bit, wiping the bits of blood spray off her face and hands, but her Dropkick Murphys shirt and tartan kilt were speckled in blood and the .45 had blood smeared around the grip. The bag dripped blood, but there was no point in worrying about it since there was no pretense to be kept here. Trini's was a hunter's bar.

She opened the door with her left hand, the one holding the bag, and let the music blare into the parking lot. The beautiful blond Goddess was sitting with her back to the bar, a covey of lovestruck men surrounded her and hung on her every word like each was the last 10 seconds of the superbowl.

Amy walked up with the bag and dropped it at her feet, raising her eyebrows as if to say "well, here it is."

"Pardon us, won't you boys." The blond cooed to the admirers.

They sulked back to their seats but still watched her intently.

She turned and motioned to the barmaid who walked down to the bar's end quickly enough.

"Today's your lucky day, Cynthia."

"How you figure that?" She asked, pulling the tap to fill a pint glass with cheap draft beer.

Cynthia was a great looking woman. Even after having kids and rounding the bend of 35 years, she was still a headturner when there wasn't a Goddess in the room. Her dishwater hair was as thick as molasses and she had green eyes that jumped out like neon signs. She had a big honest smile that lit up her face when she laughed.

She didn't laugh much lately though. 2 months ago her husband, a hunter named Geoff, had taken the job of routing a nest of vampires from the Plano area. His body parts turned up as far as the south side of Dallas.

This left her with a kid to raise, a mortgage to pay, and a barrel full of grief to carry around with her.

Not being a shrinking violet and having a bar full of hunters all the time, she offered herself as a prize to whomever could bring her the head of the vampire or vampires that had killed Geoff.

There were a lot of loud talkers and chest beating, but no one wanted to go looking for the things that had so easily dismembered the man who was probably the best hunter in Texas.

She carried her barrel full of grief and a thimble full of hope with her letting the breakneck pace of tending bar and raising kids keep her distracted from the hopelessness of her life.

So, you'll excuse her for being a pessimist when told that it is, indeed, her lucky day. Luck doesn't seem to live in Plano Texas anymore.

"What are you talking about?" Cynthia stammered.

Amy hefted the blood soaked duffel bag onto the bar with a sweep of her arm, her thumb still tucked into the waistband of her kilt like a gunslinger.

The blond smiled at Cynthia with an malevolent and mischievous grin that seemed to darken her face a bit. She turned away from Cynthia to face the barful of hot-wing munching hunters.

The jukebox, in the middle of the last verse of "Be yourself" by Audioslave, stopped suddenly when one of the Goddess's bad girls yanked the cord from the wall socket.

The blond looked at Amy with a sideways glance, this time raising her eyebrows a bit.

There are two things that will stop everyone in their tracks when you're in a bar during peak times. The sound of glass breaking and the sight of the police walking in the room.

Amy jerked a plate from the nose of a man eating wings at the bar and tossed it into the rafters where it broke. Glass came raining down on a few guys but everyone stopped what they were doing and looked. She grabbed the bag from the bar, which by now had blood dripping down the side onto the floor. The zipper was jerked back and the heads were ejected onto the scuffed pine planks.

"Cynthia is now avenged, gentlemen." The Goddess began.

One of the men stepped away from his table with a nearly empty beer mug in hand.

"Hey Cynthia, can I still collect on that bounty anyway?" He said, slurring the word "that" into 3 syllables.

Amy's .45 barked and his beer mug exploded in his hand, leaving him with a thin film of beer and glass on his person. She hopped onto the bar and stood quietly with the .45 in her hand, smoke wafting up from the barrel. She quietly surveyed the room with a stern look as pistols went back into holsters and hands came back to the top of tables.

The blond never lost her smile.

"So, let us tonight celebrate the life and heroic death of her husband Geoff as well as the death of the things that killed him." She continued. "May they never come again to this world."

She grabbed her beer from the bar and raised it above her head.

"To Geoff!" She shouted, and it seemed to shake the building.

The men raised their glasses with fearful looks on their faces and chanted after her.

She turned back toward the bar.

"And, to Cynthia." She said in a lower voice. "Now avenged, but ever grieving for her one true love."

The men chanted her words again.

The jukebox fired back up, but instead of finishing the Audioslave tune, a songwriter, his guitar, and a fiddle came over the speakers in a lonesome tune named "Wishbones". All the hunters in the room peered into their respective beer mugs in silence or stared off into some scene playing in their heads while it shuffled along.

Amy hopped down from the bar and put the pistol back in her waistband, leaving the hammer back and safety engaged.

"So, y'all are hunters?" Cynthia asked while mopping the blood off the bar.

Amy gathered the heads and put them back in the bag.

"I'm THE hunter, Cynthia." The Goddess said.

"Well, why would you be worried about my problems?"

"Cause, we girls have to stick together." She said, smiling that menacing dark smile again. "Ain't that right, Amy?"

Amy nodded in agreement as she tossed the bloody duffel into the garbage can beside the bar.

Cynthia stopped wiping the bar down and looked at the Goddess across from her as her big green eyes began to well up and spill over onto her cheeks in clear streams.

The heels of her shoes clicked on the wooden floor as the blond warrior walked around and took her in a motherly embrace.

"It's supposed to hurt, Cynthia." she said, stroking the back of her head with a delicate hand.

Cynthia fell into a fit of loud sobs and wrapped her arms around the woman in a tight embrace.

The other women, Amy's colleagues in war and servitude, gathered around Cynthia. They each lay a hand on her in a gesture of kindness. The last hand was Amy's, as it moved from her side slowly to Cynthia's heaving shoulder.

Early the next morning, Amy sat behind the wheel of her old Ford in the parking lot of Trini's. Arms folded and elbows on the window sill, the blond Goddess peeked in at her as the sun came up behind the bar.

"This isn't just some war, Amy. This is more than just my team versus their team." She began.

Amy looked at her with an intent and reverent gaze.

"It's about my people." She said, a serious look overtaking her delicate features. "It's about our people. Humanity. And if we forget to comfort the grieving and care for the wounded, then we might as well just be robots or go ahead and let the bad guys have this rock."

She paused for a second and brushed her hair out of her face.

Amy blinked her heavy black lashes under her Bettie Page bangs.

"You're not just a killer. You're an avenger and a protector." She said, putting a hand on Amy's shoulder. "So, don't forget that. We're here to help, and when we can't help we put things right."

Amy nodded in understanding.

The blonde stepped back into the sunlight that obscured her face as blue morning light poured around her.

The old Ford fired up and Amy pulled slowly out onto the southward lane, hoping that trouble would find her before she found it.


End file.
